Maybe Hospitality Is a Culture of Its Own

What Breaux Bridge, New Orleans, Biloxi, and an unexpected stay in Chattanooga taught me about belonging

I set out on the Sacred Earth Journey Across America: Southern Corridor looking for the things that make communities different.

I didn't expect to become so fascinated by what several of them had in common.

Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. New Orleans. Biloxi, Mississippi. And, unexpectedly, Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Four very different Southern cities. Different histories. Different landscapes. Different people.

Yet everywhere I went, I kept encountering the same thing.

People who seemed remarkably comfortable being human.

They laughed easily.

At themselves. At one another. At circumstances. At things that probably weren't particularly funny until someone decided they were.

There was humor woven through ordinary conversation and sometimes through difficult moments. Not humor used to dismiss hardship, but humor used to carry it.

There is a difference.

And perhaps that ability to laugh is part of what makes these communities feel so welcoming.

Breaux Bridge: “We're Just Different”

In Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, I sat with locals talking about what it means to be Cajun and what it means to belong to their community.

One phrase stayed with me:

“We're just different.”

Not better.

Not worse.

Different.

There was something wonderfully uncomplicated about that.

The conversation moved through Cajun identity, food, bayou life, community, hospitality and the peculiarities locals recognize in themselves. There was laughter throughout it.

Nobody seemed particularly interested in presenting a polished version of themselves for an outsider.

They were simply themselves.

And they invited me into it.

Almost immediately, people started telling me where I needed to go next.

You need to go see this person.

You need to stop at this place.

Oh, you need to talk to so-and-so.

One introduction led naturally toward another because, as they explained to me, everybody seems to know everybody somehow. Maybe you don't personally know someone, but you know their cousin. Or their mother. Or someone who went to school with them. Or somebody who knows somebody.

The community seems held together by an intricate web of relationships.

It reminded me enormously of communities I've encountered in the Middle East, where relationships often operate in much the same way. You rarely seem more than one or two human connections away from the person you're trying to reach.

Family matters.

Relationships matter.

Who knows whom matters.

And perhaps most importantly, people seem genuinely interested in connecting you with one another.

There is something deeply reassuring about communities like that.

You aren't navigating entirely among strangers because strangers don't remain strangers for very long.

New Orleans: Hospitality With a Wink

New Orleans has always understood that life is simultaneously beautiful, tragic and absurd.

Maybe that's why humor seems almost embedded in its cultural DNA.

It is a city shaped by celebration and catastrophe, faith and mysticism, death and dancing, extraordinary food and conversations that stretch far longer than originally intended.

Hospitality there isn't necessarily formal.

Sometimes it simply means pulling up another chair.

Sometimes family comes through the back door because the front door is for people who don't know you well enough yet.

There is intimacy in those unwritten rules.

They tell you who belongs.

And New Orleans has a remarkable way of making belonging feel less like something formally granted and more like something that happens somewhere between the first conversation, the first laugh and the moment someone decides you shouldn't leave hungry.

There is humor here too, including in places where outsiders might not expect it.

New Orleans has endured extraordinary hardship, yet people still find reasons to gather, eat, tease one another, tell stories, make music and laugh.

Maybe laughter isn't always the absence of hardship.

Sometimes it's how communities survive it.

Biloxi: Across an Ocean and Into Mississippi

Then came Biloxi.

There, I discovered the Croatian-American community whose ancestors brought their maritime knowledge from the Adriatic and became deeply connected to the Gulf Coast fishing and seafood industries.

Different language.

Different homeland.

Different sea.

And yet generations later, those families became part of what Biloxi is.

What I wasn't prepared for was how quickly they brought me in.

I arrived curious about Croatian history in Mississippi and somehow found myself feeling as though I'd walked into a family reunion.

People shared stories.

They introduced me to others.

They laughed.

They teased.

They opened their history to me.

And within remarkably little time, the formality disappeared.

I didn't feel like someone standing outside a community documenting it.

I felt like I had known these people for years.

That feeling is difficult to manufacture. You know it when it happens.

There is a point when hospitality stops feeling like someone being polite to a visitor and starts feeling like genuine inclusion.

Biloxi crossed that line almost immediately.

The Croatian story there became another reminder that cultures don't remain neatly separated.

They meet.

They adapt.

They influence one another.

They marry into one another.

They build businesses, raise children, bury grandparents, tell old stories and create new traditions.

Eventually, something that arrived from somewhere else becomes simply:

ours.

Perhaps that's one of the most beautiful things about culture.

It isn't static.

It travels with people.

And Then Chattanooga Stopped Me

Chattanooga wasn't supposed to be this kind of stop.

I arrived because an accident on I-24 left me stranded.

My journey stopped.

And Chattanooga started talking.

Almost everywhere I've gone, people have wanted to hear what happened and where I was headed. They've offered assistance, coffee, food, discounts and simple check-ins:

Are you okay?

Not ceremonially.

Genuinely.

But something else happened surprisingly quickly.

I could see myself living here.

Within a remarkably short period of time, Chattanooga stopped feeling like somewhere I was stranded and started feeling like somewhere I might belong.

I even found myself looking at apartments.

There is something about this city that seems to say:

However you got here, you're welcome to stay.

Downtown has been particularly striking.

It feels remarkably accessible on foot, with restaurants, coffee shops, businesses, parks and everyday necessities close enough together that walking feels like a legitimate way to experience the city rather than something you do only after finding a parking space.

And I feel safe walking here.

That matters.

The streets feel active without feeling overwhelming. People walk, cycle and move through public spaces in a way that makes downtown feel inhabited rather than simply developed.

Even my hotel seems to possess a sense of humor.

In the shower, the end containing the drain is labeled:

“Deep End.”

That's it.

A tiny joke stamped into a piece of metal.

But I love it.

There are messages scattered throughout the space:

Don't count the days. Make the days count.

Go where you feel alive.

The communal areas seem designed for people to actually use them together rather than simply pass through them.

That small attention to communal space feels strangely representative of what I've experienced throughout Chattanooga.

People engage.

They ask questions.

They seem genuinely interested in hearing the answer.

And outside, Chattanooga itself feels much the same.

The architecture refuses uniformity.

Historic structures more than a century old stand among contemporary buildings. Brick, stone, glass and industrial elements coexist without anyone apparently demanding that the city pick a personality.

Neither have its people.

I've encountered different generations, ethnicities, identities, spiritual practices and lifestyles occupying the same relatively compact city.

Young people.

Middle-aged people.

Older people.

Families.

LGBTQ communities.

Christians and people exploring entirely different spiritual traditions.

Artists, entrepreneurs, travelers and people whose families have been here for generations.

There seems to be room here for difference without difference becoming the entire identity of the place.

Even the landscape refuses uniformity.

The Tennessee River cuts through the city while mountains rise around it. Some areas feel distinctly urban while others quickly open into dramatically different terrain.

Nature is almost impossible to escape.

There are contrasts everywhere.

And somehow they work.

Maybe That's the Thread

I've spent much of this journey looking for cultural differences.

But perhaps one of the most interesting lessons of the Southern Corridor has been discovering certain qualities that transcend them.

Hospitality. Humor. Curiosity. Openness.

The willingness to make room for another person.

The instinct to introduce someone you just met to someone else they ought to know.

The ability to laugh when life gets ridiculous.

The habit of pulling up another chair.

The willingness to ask a stranger where she's headed and then actually listen to the answer.

Breaux Bridge showed me a community where seemingly everyone is connected through someone.

New Orleans reminded me that hospitality has its own unwritten language.

Biloxi welcomed me into a Croatian community so warmly that an interview began feeling more like a family reunion.

And Chattanooga, the city I never intended to stay in, made me start looking at apartments.

Maybe communities become welcoming not because everyone living there is alike, but because somewhere along the way they developed enough confidence in who they are to make room for people who aren't.

And perhaps humor plays a bigger role in that than we realize.

People who can laugh at themselves don't have to defend themselves quite so fiercely.

Communities that can acknowledge their own peculiarities don't have to pretend they're perfect.

And people who aren't constantly performing perfection have more room for one another.

That would explain Breaux Bridge.

It would explain New Orleans.

It would explain Biloxi.

And it might explain why a city I never intended to spend much time in has become one of the places I've felt unexpectedly drawn to.

Breaux Bridge welcomed me. New Orleans welcomed me home. Biloxi invited me into the family. Chattanooga made me wonder whether I should unpack.

I came to Chattanooga because my car couldn't continue.

Instead, I found myself slowing down long enough to notice the city.

Perhaps that's fitting.

Sacred Earth Journey was never supposed to be about racing between destinations anyway.

Sometimes the journey is the place you choose.

Sometimes it's the stranger who says, “You need to meet my friend.”

Sometimes it's a community that makes room at the table before you've figured out whether you belong there.

And sometimes it's the place where life strands you long enough to finally look around and realize:

Maybe I could belong here.

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